Canada prints 'wrong' maple leaf on bank notes

Mark Carney must have expected all sorts of criticism ahead of becoming the
Governor of the Bank of England - but perhaps not from a bunch of botanists.

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, walks past a replication of the new Canadian 100 dollar bill. Canada is known for the sugar maple but the Bank of Canada has put what one careful botanist says is a foreign Norway maple leaf on its new currency.Photo: Reuters

Julian Starr, a botany professor at the University of Ottawa said: “I would have said immediately that it would be best to make it look more like a native maple leaf. I mean this to me is just ... wrong."

Julie Girard, currency spokesperson at the Bank of Canada, insisted there had been no mistake.

She told The Daily Telegraph: “When we designed the maple leaf, we didn’t want to represent one species, we wanted a maple leaf that was not specific so that Canadians from all the different regions could identify it...It is a stylised representation of a maple leaf.”

She added: “I cannot comment on what Mark Carney may or may not think of the maple leaf. But it is not a Norwegian maple.”